Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/775

Rh PAL^AECTIC REGION.] BIRDS which lies to the north of the river Peene, nor does it stretch so far to the eastward as Danzig. It occurs, how ever, sparingly on the Polish frontier, near Thorn, and is observed in Austria, Upper Hungary, and Gallizia. In Russia its distribution cannot be laid down with any degree of accuracy, but it does not reach the Governments near the Ural, though it is said to be plentiful in that of Kharkov, and it is known to visit the Crimea. Still further to the eastward it can be traced through Circassia, and as far as Kasbin in Persia. Southward of this imper fectly-drawn line it may be found as a winter-visitant even in Arabia, Nubia, and Abyssinia, as well as in Algeria, where it is reported as breeding, and it would seem to migrate thence so far as the Gold Coast. It is abundant in Spain and Portugal ; but it is a stranger to Britanny, the western peninsula of France, just as it is to the western peninsula of England. 1 i- One other example we may take, and this, though much less familiar, is equally instructive, as exhibiting some of the as yet unexplained peculiarities of distribution. It shall be from a Bird belonging to a very different Order from the last, having habits entirely dissimilar, and pre senting in most ways a great contrast. The Kentish Plover (jEgialitis cantiana), first determined from specimens obtained on the coast of that English county whence it takes its specific name, has its breeding-place in Britain limited to the pebbly beach between Sandwich and Hast ings, and in other parts of the British Islands only occurs as a chance straggler. Yet this bird has as wide a range elsewhere as almost any that could be named breeding not only abundantly along the greater part of the coasts of the temperate and warmer portions of the Old World north of the Equator, but also occasionally in the interior, as at the base of the Caucasus and in the chotts of the North African plains ; while during its migrations it wanders to the Malay Archipelago and South Africa, or even seems most likely to be specifically identical with a Plover which is found on the west coast of America, from California southward though this last has been described as distinct under the name of jE. nivoscu an Islands must always be a matter of the greatest interest to the student of Geographical Distribution, and we have already mentioned some peculiarities of those groups which belong to the Mediterranean Subregion of Europe. There are not many more here to be cited. Spitsbergen is supposed to have its peculiar species of Ptarmigan (Lag- opus he?nileucurus), though it is confessedly very nearly allied to the Rock-Ptarmigan (L. rupestris) which inhabits the Arctic portion of the American continent and islands, Greenland, and Iceland, but, except in the last-named coun try, does not occur in the Pabearctic Region. Iceland is also remarkable for being the headquarters of the noble Falcon (Falco islandus) which takes its name therefrom, though this bird also inhabits the southern districts of Greenland, to say nothing of other countries j and in Ice land alone of the western portion of the Region does the beautiful Harlequin-Duck (Histrionicus torquatus) breed. It is, however, known to inhabit North America and the eastern half of Siberia. u- Coming nearer home, we have a remarkable case of re- Red stricted distribution in the Red Grouse (Lagopus scoticus), found (and in certain districts, as every one knows, numer ously), in each of the three kingdoms composing the British Islands as well as in the principality of Wales. The de tails of its local distribution, as of that of all other birds which breed in Great Britain, have been carefully and con cisely given by Mr More, 2 and we do not propose to con- 1 Cf. Yarrell, British Birds, ed. 4, vol i. pp. 315-318. sider them here, but what is worthy of remark is that this particular species differs in no essential character save coloration from the Willow-Grouse (L. albus), which is an abundant bird throughout the whole of the northern parts of the Palaearctic Region from Norway to Kamchatka, and again throughout the same or even lower latitudes of the Nearctic Region from Alaska to Newfoundland. Its re mains, as has before been said (page 731), have also been found in the south of France, associated with those of the Reindeer and Snowy Owl. :j It is not for us now to enter into any hypothetical discussion, but it is hard to resist drawing an inference that at a time, geologically speaking, not very recent, both these species of Grouse had a common ancestor, and that the severe winters to which it has for a long period been exposed have caused the Willow-Grouse to don the snowy garb that is characteristic of it and other species of the genus, the more so since we find it in its first plumage possessed of the coloured quills, which are precisely similar to those of the Red Grouse at the same age. Other instances there are in which British-born examples of species common to the continent are in a less degree distinguishable from those of neighbouring countries. The Coal-Titmouse of England is to be recognized from that of continental Europe (Parus ater), and accordingly by some ornithologists it is regarded as a distinct species (P. britan- nicus), but the scanty remnants of the ancient pine-forests of Scotland are inhabited by birds between which and European examples no difference can be established. The home-bred Bottle-Titmouse of Britain, too, has, from its darker coloration, been accorded specific rank, but then we occasionally find continental birds of this species (Acre- dula caudata) varying in this respect, and the specific vali dity of the British form (A. rosea) can hardly be with consistency maintained. Indeed, as a matter of fact, nearly all our smaller birds can be distinguished by an expert from their continental brethren, and this mainly through their duller or darker plumage. The difference is not so great by any means as obtains in the case of the birds of the Atlantic Islands above mentioned, but it most unques tionably exists to a greater or less degree ; and it is curious that an analogous state of things is observable in regard to many of the birds of Japan, a country which is subject to many of the same climatic conditions as the British Islands. It will be for future investigators to ascertain the cause of this similarity, we here only record the fact ; but another remarkable instance of the forms of the western portion of the region being repeated in the far east, is fouhd in the range of the two kindred species of the beautiful genus Cyanopica the Blue Magpie of Portugal and Spain (C. cooki) being replaced in Amoorland and Japan by a species (C. cyanea) so closely allied that some authorities refuse to acknowledge their distinctness, and yet through out 130 of longitude no representative of either is found. V. THE ETHIOPIAN REGION, comprising the whole of the African continent, except the Barbary States, besides the Cape-Verd Islands and naturally those situated in the Gulf of Guinea, as well as Madagascar and the Mascarene group from Reunion (Bourbon) to the Seychelles, and the large island of Socotra, and crossing the Red Sea to Arabia, is sufficiently well marked out in a geographical point of view. The Ghor, or valley of the Jordan and the depressed basin of the Dead Sea, has been before mentioned as an outlier of this Region, the north-eastern part of which melts into the Pala?arctic between Palestine and the Persian Gulf. There, and apparently there only, do its boundaries admit of no precise definition. Some zoogeographers seem in clined to extend its limits further to the eastward, through Beloochistan and even beyond the Indus ; but though the desert-forms of a large portion of that tract of country are Other Peculiar! ETHIOPL REGION. Bound- nnes -
 * Ibis, 1865, pp. 1-27, 119-142, 425-453.